DailyDot roflcon Feedhttp://www.dailydot.com/tags/roflcon/Recent roflcon articles from Daily Doten-usThu, 07 Jun 2012 11:00:00 +0000Raising Scumbag Steve: Susan Boston's family mattershttp://www.dailydot.com/society/scumbag-steve-susan-blake-boston-interview/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/32/90/32901fe8e845385c2c4503aedc4055e1.jpg'></p><p>
It&rsquo;s not everyday you meet a mother who&rsquo;s proud when her son is called a scumbag.</p>
<p>
Then again, Susan Boston&rsquo;s son, Blake, is no ordinary scumbag.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
He&rsquo;s <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/scumbag-steve">Scumbag Steve</a>, the inspiration for the ubiquitous image macro used to describe <em>that guy</em> who habitually owes you money, wants to borrow your car, and drinks the last beer. And she&rsquo;s at least partly responsible for the 22-year-old&rsquo;s Internet fame. The photo from which the Scumbag Steve meme derives was one she took and posted online seven years ago. She had no idea that total strangers would&mdash;or even could&mdash;re-appropriate the image for laughs.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I felt like I took a crash course in online culture when Blake first discovered the scumbag steve meme,&rdquo; she told the Daily Dot, with a distinct Boston accent.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t think I would have been able to handle my picture portraying a scumbag posted around the world with such humor and nonchalance.&rdquo; &nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Blake Boston has turned his Web notoriety into a <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/kim-dotcom-scumbag-steve-venn-diagram/">burgeoning rap career</a>, a <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/business/scumbag-steve-blake-boston-brisk-iced-tea/">promotional campaign with Brisk,</a> and an appearance at the <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/top-10-2012-webby-awards/">2012 Webby Awards</a>&mdash;albeit in character.</p>
<p>
Slowly but surely, the rest of his adopted family is learning to laugh at the meme as well.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;My 88 and 83-year-old parents are fine with it,&rdquo; Susan Boston said. &ldquo;They get it believe it or not.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
That wasn&rsquo;t always the case.</p>
<p>
Last year <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356146/I-longer-protect-child-mother-Scumbag-Steve-Blake-Boston-speaks-internet-meme-campaign-son.html">Susan Boston was quoted by the <em>Daily Mail</em></a> as saying, &ldquo;I could no longer protect my son.&rdquo; Boston claims she was misquoted when she said the photos made her sick, though at the time the meme had a far more negative effect on the family.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;I still have family members who think we can control the meme. They think if we had just ignored it, it would have disappeared. I don&rsquo;t know if they understand the scope of memes. It&rsquo;s really hard to explain memes and &lsquo;going viral&rsquo; to someone who&rsquo;s not so familiar with the Internet.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Boston, 55, is certainly more hip to the ways of the Web now than most suburban Massachusetts moms might be. She&rsquo;s an active redditor and on Twitter. In fact, if you tweet a Scumbag Steve meme at &nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/BlakeBoston617">@BlakeBoston617</a> and Blake isn&rsquo;t around, it might be her who uses the handle to reply.</p>
<p>
A woman with a big personality and silvery blonde hair tied back, Boston overflows with maternal pride. At the recent ROFLcon, a Web culture convention, she praised Blake to this reporter so bombastically that the two of us were asked to leave a &nbsp;panel.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;He&rsquo;s always liked performing,&rdquo; she told me. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t have a shy bone in his body. When he was three, we were at a concert and we were in the front row. Blake ran and climbed onto the stage and stood there swaying to the music. The whole crowd loved it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="//cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/6/3/scumbag_fam_2.JPG" style="margin: 5px; float: right; width: 250px; height: 417px; " /></p>
<p>
Boston said that since Blake&rsquo;s an adult, she doesn&rsquo;t have a role in managing his career, though the family&mdash;her husband Stephen Boston and 23-year-old daughter Patsy&mdash;was filmed by MTV last year for a potential pilot, and they do draw looks in public.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;When we go places and he&rsquo;s recognized, it&rsquo;s funny,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Of course I sometimes get weirded out when I see someone sneaking a picture. I&rsquo;m a redditor so I know what can happen when someone posts a picture.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
And sometimes, she admits, &ldquo;the mom in me&rdquo; still comes out when she sees people spreading untruths about her son online.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I want to take out a billboard and say, you all who think you know&hellip; don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How can you have such disdain for someone you&rsquo;ve never met? Try and reflect a bit and think about what you write, and who you judge. Blake just laughs it off.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
And he uses it to fuel his brand. Most recently, he launched <a href="http://scumbagthursdays.com/">Scumbag Thursdays</a>, a weekly series of rap videos on YouTube. This week&rsquo;s installment is a bit &ldquo;embarrassing&rdquo; for his mom to listen to, but she justifies it saying, &ldquo;the sexual element just goes along with rap.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-6PYVF8uSkw?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
Blake continues to amaze his mom every day, through both his musical pursuits and his simple inability not to get beat down by being called &ldquo;scumbag&rdquo; everywhere he goes.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I guess he&rsquo;s always been that kid.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<em>Photos via Susan Boston</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
lauren.rae.orsini@gmail.com (Lauren Rae Orsini)Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:00:00 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/scumbag-steve-susan-blake-boston-interview/SocietyThe Hater: Pulling the plug on Internet Weekhttp://www.dailydot.com/society/hater-internet-week-iwny-rant/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/74/f0/74f0c934c5dc9a9e1e3d5f8409126089.jpg'></p><p>
<em>We love the Internet. Except when we hate it. Every week, Jordan Valinsky bottles the angst of his Millennial generation and finds something to despise about the Web.</em></p>
<p>
Everyone, just shut up for a second. You hear that faint dial-up noise mixed with gurgles and ambivalence emanating from tech-bastion New York? It must be &ldquo;<a href="http://www.internetweekny.com/">Internet Week</a>&rdquo; again!</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s an annual series of events that&rsquo;s plausibly about the Internet. But really, it&rsquo;s a chance for New Yorkers to collectively unpack and swing around their girthy keyboards toward California screaming, &ldquo;Hey, HEY Silicon Valley, we *get* the Internet too... but yeah, the weather here does suck.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Internet Week, or <a href="http://topsy.com/s?q=%23IWNY&amp;type=tweet">#IWNY</a> as people who use the California-based Twitter call it, seems to be another week where alleged important people from the Internet blow smoke up each other&#39;s asses. Of course, they do so while simultaneously: hoping to up their Klout score; adding more connections on LinkedIn; and poaching mayorships from unknowing New Yorkers on Foursquare.</p>
<p>
Also, it&rsquo;s a good place for participants to perfect their talented photography skills. Look at all these <a href="http://hashgr.am/IWNY">really good pictures</a> of &ldquo;tech titans&rdquo; talking about the future in their brogramming-approved uniforms. Tumblr&rsquo;s David Karp <a href="http://hashgr.am/image/192600849204198363_55789173">snapped</a> in a American Apparel hoodie! Mashable&rsquo;s Pete Cashmore in a <a href="http://hashgr.am/image/192238019122225420_5706719">sleek suit thinking</a> about Revlon! A <a href="http://hashgr.am/image/192659314786231149_9425055">pulled pork sandwich</a>!</p>
<p>
Fashion and high cuisine aside, it&rsquo;s also a week that&rsquo;s dedicated to chill digital topics, such as &ldquo;temporal proximity&rdquo; (those are words that can exist together?), over-analyzing analytics, streaming media, and, most importantly, buzz. Sorry, I meant #buzz.</p>
<p>
So it seems like it&rsquo;s full of talking points that you already heard at South by Southwest in Austin in March, but in a city where an Odwalla costs $9 and where <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/the-sxsw-homeless-hotspots-everyones-flippi">homeless people are not nice enough to bottle</a> some Wi-Fi for you. That seems awful. I hate it.</p>
<p>
Or maybe I just don&rsquo;t get it, since I&rsquo;m not in New York waving my flip-phone at festivalgoers while giving them the stink-eye.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a week where the city&rsquo;s Internet industry comes out from behind their screens,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/future-internet-week-york-facebook-buzzfeed-companies-opening-doors-article-1.1077764?localLinksEnabled=false">festival founder</a> David-Michael Davies explained to <em>New York Daily News</em>.</p>
<p>
Apparently, us Internet people are socially inept, and this is the only week a year where we can escape our content farms and interact with fellow humans. That probably explains the excess of open bars this week. So make sure you address your e-cards to <a href="https://internetweekny.com/sponsors?category=Sponsor#57">Stella Artois and Bushmills</a>&nbsp;when you sober up next week, nerds.</p>
<p>
Hating aside, I get the general idea is to bring smart people together to percolate ideas on how tech can improve life. Not a bad idea, sure&mdash;but like many conferences, isn&rsquo;t it a bit too much of a circle jerk with an inauthentic feel? Between the <a href="https://internetweekny.com/sponsors#/?page=official">odd sponsorships</a> (Revlon&rsquo;s <a href="https://internetweekny.com/special_events/revlon">&ldquo;New Media Makeover&rdquo;</a>) and bizarre celebrity appearances, the whole event seems forced. What about bringing in the &ldquo;little people&rdquo; who actually <em>use</em> the Internet and not <em>dictate</em> it, <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/dot-dot-dot-roflcon-memes-power/">like</a> at <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/daily-dot-guide-roflcon/">ROFLcon</a>?</p>
<p>
Also, ew, those outrageous ticket prices. Forcing festival goers to purchase $400 pass to fully experience the week is a dick move. But you get a tote at least! (The discounted student ticket is a nice touch that SXSW can learn something from, though.)</p>
<p>
Unless &nbsp;#IWNY is going to evolve into something useful instead of just baiting for bloggable buzz, can it just sign-off already?</p>
<p>
<em>Photo via <a href="http://hashgr.am/image/192572206165166105_31706441">Hashgr.am</a></em></p>
jordan-valinsky-1Wed, 16 May 2012 21:23:17 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/hater-internet-week-iwny-rant/SocietyThe triumphant return of "Gingers do have souls"http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/copper-cab-gingers-souls-gregory-brothers/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/c9/22/c9229d45608284f46b39deed4166e122.jpg'></p><p>
<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gingers-do-have-souls">Copper Cab</a>, a viral video star and Internet troll made famous in 2010 for ranting about discrimination against redheads, is in the limelight again thanks to a new song.</p>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.thegregorybrothers.com/">Gregory Brothers</a>&mdash;the same musicians responsible for AutoTune the News and the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songify/id438735719?mt=8">Songify phone app</a>&mdash;have just released their own cover of Cab&rsquo;s &ldquo;GINGERS have SOULS,&rdquo; kicking off their new series called &lsquo;Songify the Classics.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jMjcDbYxS3M?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
The cover mellows out the redhead&rsquo;s rant considerably, removing the drama inherent in the original rant which has collected more than 28 million views to date. Cab&rsquo;s original three-minute <a href="http://youtu.be/EY39fkmqKBM">monologue</a>, done in response to a South Park episode, was so explosive that South Park had no choice but to parody it on another <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiHI_TZF3n4">episode</a>.</p>
<p>
Why the Gregory Brothers decided to auto-tune Copper Cab&rsquo;s rant first out of all the other viral video classics is a mystery to many YouTubers. (Perhaps Cab&rsquo;s recent <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL82E544B275AF6EAD">ROFLcon panel</a> has thrust him back into the spotlight.) &nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Wow it﻿ only took you two plus years to autotune it,&rdquo; wrote <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/pavelow235">pavelow235</a> sarcastically.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Gingers Have Souls&rdquo; has <a href="http://youtu.be/sJSmByjkycA">already</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzn1YaOTNIc">been</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFiODPSQPH0">remixed</a> <a href="http://youtu.be/q0Eb-SXM7j8">countless</a> <a href="http://youtu.be/sJSmByjkycA">times</a> <a href="http://youtu.be/W42p0N5_ihM">before</a>, with one earlier, amateur autotuned version already having <a href="http://youtu.be/CbuYb6lLHX8">seven</a> million views.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Better Than Justin Bieber,&rdquo; wrote <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/MrOriginalBoss">MrOriginalBoss</a> in a top comment on the Gregory Brothers remix.</p>
<p>
<em>Photo via <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=jMjcDbYxS3M">YouTube</a></em></p>
fruzsina@dailydot.com (Fruzsina Eördögh)Wed, 16 May 2012 20:48:27 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/copper-cab-gingers-souls-gregory-brothers/YouTubeEntertainmentDot Dot Dot: The power of the ridiculoushttp://www.dailydot.com/society/dot-dot-dot-roflcon-memes-power/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/e3/e0/e3e0400f3d6d5e009afe17e7cb8b4c7c.jpg'></p><p>
Absurdity&mdash;sheer ridiculousness&mdash;doesn&rsquo;t get enough respect.</p>
<p>
That&rsquo;s what I kept thinking last weekend at ROFLcon.</p>
<p>
The highly engaging <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/jonathan-zittrain-roflcon-keynote-address/">opening keynote</a> was delivered by Jonathan Zittrain, cofounder of Harvard&rsquo;s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and author of The Future of the Internet&mdash;And How to Stop It. It was funny, but it also made you think.</p>
<p>
Zittrain brought up Bill O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s <a href="http://youtu.be/HABNe7_D22k">infamous encounter</a> with the president of American Atheists. In the harangue, the Fox News political commentator apparently believed that he delivered an unanswerable argument and did what St. Thomas Aquinas and Descartes failed to do&mdash;prove the existence of God. What was the coup de grace in this millennia-long pursuit? The tide. &ldquo;It comes in, it goes out&mdash;you can&rsquo;t explain that,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Reilly said. And a meme was born.</p>
<p>
Soon, the Internet, which keeps us all humble, provided <a href="http://memegenerator.net/Bill-Oreilly-Proves-God">many, many things</a> that Bill O&rsquo;Reilly cannot explain.</p>
<p>
In the &ldquo;conversation&rdquo; on O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s show, there was nothing his opponent could say to actually win the argument. Whatever point of view you have (and for the record, I don&rsquo;t side with either), if it&rsquo;s not already O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s, you are not going to win on O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s show. In other words, O&rsquo;Reilly can&rsquo;t be beat by argument.</p>
<p>
But the meme shows, he can be made ridiculous.</p>
<p>
***</p>
<p>
It would be easy to trivialize ROFLcon. It is afterall, a celebration of the trivial, of everything that is ridiculous, absurd, hilarious&mdash;everything that makes you roll on the floor laughing. And it was a surreal experience to turn around at a party and be face to face with <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/video/scumbag-steve-blake-boston-roflcon-interview/">Scumbag Steve</a>.</p>
<p>
But if there was a theme to my experience of the event, it was how quickly the trivial can become significant.</p>
<p>
In the Supercuts panel, we were treated to an instance in which the time-consuming hobby became a powerful political statement. Diran Lyons <a href="http://youtu.be/K-JuE9esfUc">cut together</a> WhiteHouse.gov clip after official clip of President Barack Obama using the word &ldquo;spending.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
But can a supercut be art? The Columbus Museum of Art thinks so. It commissioned Duncan Robson to create the elegant and eerie supercut, <a href="http://youtu.be/4tiPOMd14eQ">Tumbleweeds</a>. (After hours and hours looking at westerns, Robson told us, he discovered they never showed tumbleweeds in spaghetti westerns, and he&rsquo;s convinced that the iconic image of a lone tumbleweed blowing through an empty ghost town has never actually been shot.)</p>
<p>
You can&rsquo;t really get more Internet <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/popspot-video-viral-roflcon-tron-guy/">ridiculous</a> than <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/tron-guy-jay-maynard-interview/">Tron Guy (and I say that lovingly)</a>. But it was Tron Guy Jay Maynard who <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/jay-maynard-tron-guy-roflcon-cispa/">stole the show</a> at the Defending the Internet panel. In a room full of liberals (if the show of hands was any indication), Maynard stood up, identified himself as both a Tea Party conservative and the &ldquo;poster child for &lsquo;made by the Internet&rsquo;.&rdquo; He then delivered an impassioned plea for a non-partisan alliance to protect the Internet. I think everyone in the room was inspired.</p>
<p>
Whatever the field, it seems much of the most interesting, engaged, and richest discourse is happening through memes and lulz. Everything from &ldquo;human rights, gender, prejudices involving homosexuality and race, and even how we deal with rape,&rdquo; are now vibrant subjects of online discourse through memes, DDoS attacks, and other online antics. Or at least, <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/memes-anonymous-sinker-latoya-peterson-biella-cole/">so they argued</a> in the Lolitics: Memes and Politics panel.</p>
<p>
In the Global Lulzes panel, we learned that it is through memes that political activism in China is finding an outlet that even its <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/sina-weibo-censorship-user-contract/">active government cannot censor</a>.</p>
<p>
***</p>
<p>
Perhaps ridiculousness is as powerful a force to fight evil as anything. One of my personal favorite memes is the one where people <a href="http://youtu.be/qDiDATbIG-o">resubtitle Hitler&rsquo;s rampage</a> in Downfall. We watch one of the most diabolical mass murderers in history screaming about fonts, not <a href="http://youtu.be/eqEpXj9Ot3A">getting an iPhone</a>, and being <a href="http://youtu.be/RZZsU7DF1c8">betrayed in Risk</a>.</p>
<p>
Could the holocaust have happened, Zittrain asked, in the age of the Internet? Directly opposing Hitler&rsquo;s evil agenda took decades and a world war. Would his rise have been so inexorable if the Downfall meme (or <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/draw-something-ignore-hitler-interview/">Draw Something</a>) had existed in 1933?</p>
<p>
It reminded me of Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt&rsquo;s account of the fall of the Ku Klux Klan in Freakonomics.</p>
<p>
In the 1940s, the KKK was a major political force, with growing membership and power. In the &rsquo;50s, it was deflating like a worn-out balloon. A journalist named Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the Klan, and the Superman radio program ran a series in 1947.</p>
<p>
The series didn&rsquo;t so much expose all the bad things the Klan did; it simply portrayed its codewords, rituals, and special titles, which sound like something out of a bad comic book written by an 8-year-old. Kennedy didn&rsquo;t destroy the Klan by exposing their evil. He destroyed the Klan by making it ridiculous.</p>
<p>
The power of the ridiculous to defeat evil is as great as direct opposition, I think, because on some level the kind of overblown self-importance that is embodied in the Klan&rsquo;s rituals is an inherent part of it. As long as we can laugh at ourselves, there&rsquo;s only so bad we can be.</p>
<p>
<em>Photo by Nicholas White. The crowd responds to the question, &ldquo;How many of you have taken some action to oppose SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, or ACTA?&rdquo;</em></p>
nick@dailydot.com (Nicholas White)Thu, 10 May 2012 18:30:30 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/dot-dot-dot-roflcon-memes-power/SocietyAre YouTube channels hurting viral-video stars?http://www.dailydot.com/business/matt-harding-liam-sullivan-youtube-debate/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/a1/fd/a1fd27e4996f62ccfec2f91c66af32b8.jpg'></p><p>
In its quest to usurp television as content king, YouTube has left some independent video creators out in the cold.</p>
<p>
Or so argued viral-video stars <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/matt-harding-youtube-channels-interview/">Matt Harding</a> and Judson Laipply on Saturday during the ROFLcon panel, Channels Killed the (Internet) Video Star, a discussion revolving around YouTube&rsquo;s corporate changes as related to the YouTube community. (To set the tone of the panel, news of Google&rsquo;s additional $200 million investment in premium content elicited boos.) &nbsp;</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Harding, who became famous for his video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/mattharding2718">series</a>, Where the Hell is Matt, which features him dancing in public in various countries, believes &ldquo;the barrier for entry&rdquo; into YouTube stardom is higher than it used to be and that YouTube as a company doesn&rsquo;t care about the little guy any more.</p>
<p>
His main gripe is because he doesn&rsquo;t produce serialized content, he can&rsquo;t get ads on his videos, some of which have been viewed more than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY">42 million times</a>.</p>
<p>
Since the inception of the Partner Program <a href="http://socialtimes.com/infographic-youtube-partners_b95610?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+socialtimes+%28SocialTimes.com%29">in 2007</a>, YouTube has moved from a simple video-sharing site filled with cute animals doing silly things on camera to a video-production powerhouse emphasizing professional, serialized content. With this shift, a whole industry of promoting, managing, and branding YouTube celebrities has emerged (i.e. Makers Studios). And with that has come big money from interested advertisers. &nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;In 2008, I could show YouTube employees my videos,&rdquo; and they would be &ldquo;excited about my videos,&rdquo; and they&rsquo;d put them &ldquo;on the front page&rdquo; Harding said. &ldquo;When I talk to them now, they&rsquo;re like &lsquo;eh.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Known for the the &ldquo;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg">Evolution of Dance</a>&rdquo; video, Laipply echoed Hardings sentiments by simply stating &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t matter to YouTube.&rdquo; Laipply understands why YouTube is moving in the direction it is, though, saying &ldquo;marketers need a reliable audience&rdquo; and &ldquo;serialized content is easier to sell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
However, Liam Sullivan, the other viral-video star and YouTuber on the panel, has had a remarkably different experience. Sullivan hit stardom in 2007 with his video &ldquo;Shoes,&rdquo; sung by his female character named &ldquo;Kelly.&rdquo; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I had to adapt to this new model&rdquo; said Sullivan, who is signed with Makers Studios. He compares the current YouTube industry to &ldquo;Columbia Pictures but in the 1920&rsquo;s.&rdquo; He finds the restrictions, and the need for serialized content, a positive that has helped his creativity.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The rule is, &lsquo;Always be posting,&rsquo; like that saying from<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4"> Glengarry Glen Ross: &lsquo;Always be closing&rsquo;</a>,&rdquo; joked Sullivan.</p>
<p>
<em>Photo via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/4355598762/">x-ray delta one</a> /Flickr&nbsp;</em></p>
fruzsina@dailydot.com (Fruzsina Eördögh)Tue, 08 May 2012 17:08:59 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/business/matt-harding-liam-sullivan-youtube-debate/BusinessNewsYouTubeExclusive: Tron Guy floors ROFLcon with speech on how to stop CISPAhttp://www.dailydot.com/news/jay-maynard-tron-guy-roflcon-cispa/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/28/e8/28e8ecfcb2a9e189d90ac0391e1a79e0.jpg'></p><p>
If you went to the ROFLcon in Boston last weekend, there&rsquo;s probably one moment that sticks out: Jay Maynard, better known as&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/tron-guy-jay-maynard-interview/">Tron Guy</a>, standing up during the final panel and delivering a brief but passionate speech about conservatism, cybersecurity legislation like the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), and the need for a bipartisan alliance to ensure that any such bad Internet legislation gets killed well before it can cause harm.</p>
<p>
As far these things go, this was pretty much a bravura performance. And now, thanks to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/popspot">PopSpot video</a>, who <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/popspot-video-viral-roflcon-tron-guy/">filmed</a> the entire conference, we&rsquo;ve finally got the clip, and it&rsquo;s a must see. (His speech begins at about 32 seconds.)</p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lYdls4-j-vs?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Maynard&rsquo;s big moment came during the conferences last panel, Defending The Internet. With panelists including Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian; Derek Slater, policy analyst at Google; Stanford lecturer&nbsp;Elizabeth Stark; and Tiff Cheng, cofounder of<a href="http://fightforthefuture.org/"> Fight for the Future</a>, it&rsquo;s fair to say the opinions skewed left.</p>
<p>
But Maynard, who called himself a &ldquo;a poster child for &lsquo;made-by-the Internet&rsquo;&rdquo; but professed to be a conservative and &ldquo;damn proud of it,&rdquo; said Internet defenders have to forget about political differences. They have &ldquo;stick to the issues,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard a lot of the usual anti-corporate rhetoric and leftist thought,&rdquo; Maynard said. &ldquo;In order to keep everybody&#39;s paws off the internet you have to make the tea party and the conservative people understand this is going to affect them too. It&rsquo;s going to shut down Rush Limbaugh as much as it&rsquo;s going to shut down Occupy [Wall Street].</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy to explain why things are bad and why they will affect everybody and not just the left &hellip; but stick to the issues and how it&rsquo;s going to affect everybody. Or as [Derek Slater] says, it&rsquo;s going down.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Maynard, a popular attendee at the conference just about every year, became an Internet star after releasing photos of his homemade Tron suit, which got picked up at places like Fark and Slashdot in 2004.</p>
<p>
Maynard&rsquo;s day job is a computer programmer, but we suggest the Internet him as official spokesperson. We&rsquo;d love to see him book a guest spot on Hannity and talk about CISPA.</p>
kevin@dailydot.com (Kevin Morris)Tue, 08 May 2012 14:43:56 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/news/jay-maynard-tron-guy-roflcon-cispa/NewsThe legacy of Tron Guy Jay Maynardhttp://www.dailydot.com/society/tron-guy-jay-maynard-interview/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/ed/0a/ed0aef0a050165925762a3527b96d27c.jpg'></p><p>
Jay Maynard&rsquo;s <em>Tron</em>-inspired suit has taken the Houston native to some impressive heights.</p>
<p>
While wearing the firm-fitting leotard and light-up body armor, Maynard, 51, has appeared on<em> Tosh 2.0</em>, <em>The Jimmy Kimmel Show</em>, and even performed on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTLW2vHRpH4"><em>America&rsquo;s Got Talent</em>.</a></p>
<p>
But after eight years worth of TV appearances and conferences, the suit is starting to show its age.</p>
<p>
Small holes have appeared in random places, the fabric around the zipper have started to rip, parts of the light-up armor are broken, and the slip-on shoes&mdash;once a pale white&mdash;have started to turn green and crack.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I keep telling myself I will fix it but I never manage to do it,&rdquo; Maynard told the Daily Dot at ROFLcon on Friday.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Maynard lives in Fairmont, Minn., a city of about 11,000 people. When he&rsquo;s not volunteering to maintain the IBM mainframe emulator Hercules, Maynard is a computer consultant who does installations and some computer software training. Life in Fairmont is pretty normal, Maynard said. ROFLcon, on the other hand, was an entirely different animal.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I got recognized more out of the costume last night than I have been in years,&rdquo; Maynard said, referencing the pre-conference party where he wore a T-shirt and some jeans. &ldquo;That was very unusual.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
What&rsquo;s perhaps even more unusual is that Maynard has never heard one word of encouragement or opposition from Disney, owners of the Tron franchise. The closest Maynard has gotten to hearing from Disney was when Buena Vista Games, which is now Disney Interactive Studios, had Maynard meet with the marketing team behind &ldquo;Tron. 2.0,&rdquo; a first-person shooter released in 2003.</p>
<p>
Despite the lack of recognition from Disney, Maynard continues to be a huge fan of the franchise, particularly <em>Tron Legacy</em>.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I loved it, said Maynard, who plans on making a<em> Tron Legacy</em>-inspired suite in the near future. &ldquo;My only complaint is that they didn&rsquo;t involve me in it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Surprisingly, Maynard has never cashed in on his Internet-fame. The only money he ever made from the suit was a union wage he collected for appearing on Kimmel. And trips to conferences, including ROFLcon, are funded out of his own pocket.</p>
<p>
For Maynard, the suit is about his love for Tron and being true to himself, which is something he thinks many other meme &ldquo;celebrities&rdquo; have lost sight of.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The only way it works is if it&rsquo;s spontaneous and unexpected&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Otherwise, they are missing the point.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<em>Photo by Fernando Alfonso III</em></p>
fernando@dailydot.com (Fernando Alfonso III)Mon, 07 May 2012 14:39:14 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/tron-guy-jay-maynard-interview/SocietyThe future is in the memeshttp://www.dailydot.com/society/memes-anonymous-sinker-latoya-peterson-biella-cole/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/ab/4d/ab4d8ca970de6ef62cc7eab9c9d17ad1.jpg'></p><p>
Long ago are the days when Internet memes, a form of coded language masquerading as a shared cultural nugget, were described as just &ldquo;silly jokes from the web.&rdquo; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
Memes now influence how we talk about politics, human rights, gender, prejudices involving homosexuality and race, and even how we deal with rape. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
So argued <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/dansinker">Dan Sinker</a> of the parody Twitter account @MayorEmanuel, Anonymous researcher and professor <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/biellacoleman">Biella Coleman</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/latoyapeterson">Latoya Peterson</a> of the race and pop culture blog <a href="http://www.racialicious.com/">Racialicious</a> during the ROFLcon panel discussion, Lolitics: Memes and Politics, last weekend. &nbsp;</p>
<p>
Sinker, who used a parody Twitter account to provide anonymous commentary on the mayoral elections in Chicago, believes the real campaign battlefield of the future will be on the Web. The ammunition for these political campaigns? Memes. &nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;Humor allows us to disarm and engage in conversations that we otherwise couldn&rsquo;t do.&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right; ">
&mdash;Dan Sinker</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Peterson was inclined to agree, citing the &quot;Shit People Say&quot; series as an example. Hundreds of video creators used that video trope to riff on how different ethnicities, sexual orientations, and genders are perceived and treated by modern society. The videos opened up an Internet wide discussion about identity and also gave marginalized or victimized groups (like rape survivors) a way to participate in critical discussion without alienating audiences.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Humor is a powerful tool,&rdquo; said Peterson, who added memes can be &ldquo;subverted as forms of activism.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Likewise, Internet defenders and the Occupy Wall Street movement use memes as a form of protest. The hacktivist collective Anonymous has been using memes as a way to protest since 2008. Even if the use of memes by these groups is done purely for spectacle, that doesn&rsquo;t mean the protest is ineffective or lacks value, Coleman said.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;DDoSing and the lulzes and other stupid things &hellip; garner media attention,&rdquo; but while that can be ineffective on its own, Coleman argued, ultimately, it&rsquo;s &ldquo;a very valuable tool in a diverse political kit.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Is it that surprising that we use memes to communicate political or cultural commentary? In an age of micro-blogging, social status updating, and GIF posting, tightly woven social code like memes are incredibly efficient at communicating complex ideas.</p>
<p>
<em>Photo via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/weeklydig/7147200315/">WeeklyDig</a>/Flickr&nbsp;</em></p>
fruzsina@dailydot.com (Fruzsina Eördögh)Mon, 07 May 2012 14:19:28 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/memes-anonymous-sinker-latoya-peterson-biella-cole/SocietyNewsWatch the viral stars of ROFLcon in slo-mohttp://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/popspot-video-viral-roflcon-tron-guy/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/39/0e/390eac4fa031136d4ba395e1e8bccd79.jpg'></p><p>
Who doesn&rsquo;t want to see the millisecond-by-millisecond trajectory of viral star Tron Guy Jay Maynard&rsquo;s belly as he twirls a hula hoop?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
This past weekend at <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/daily-dot-guide-roflcon/">ROFLcon</a>, Internet video makers <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/popspot">PopSpot Video</a>&nbsp;plucked away the assembled Internet celebrities to a small room on Massachusetts Institute of Technology&rsquo;s campus. There, facing lights and a platoon of attendants, the stars posed, made faces, jumped around, and battled each other with toy weapons as a camera filmed them at 1,000 frames per second. (When I checked out the room, <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nope-chuck-testa">Chuck Testa</a> was smacking double rainbow guy <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/double-rainbow">Paul Vasquez</a> in the face with a toy mace.)</p>
<p>
PopStart&rsquo;s founder is Woody Thompson. He&rsquo;s also the creator of &nbsp;VH1&rsquo;s Pop-Up videos and this new venture, unsurprisingly, gives the same treatment to viral videos. As a ROFLcon sponsor this year, PopStart is recording each of the conferences 35 panels, ensuring that all the Internet gathered this weekend at MIT will perpetuate on YouTube for posterity.</p>
<p>
<big><strong>JAY Maynard, <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tron-guy">Tron Guy</a></strong></big></p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5TcO5-p4bfQ?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leeroy-jenkins">Leeroy Jenkins</a></strong></big></p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ABcqO5S2LQk?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
<big><strong>Viral all-stars</strong></big></p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/91g8iCtK0lE?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
kevin@dailydot.com (Kevin Morris)Mon, 07 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/popspot-video-viral-roflcon-tron-guy/EntertainmentMeme Factory performs at ROFLcon: Is the Internet in an "eternal September"?http://www.dailydot.com/culture/meme-factory-roflcon/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/cc/d2/ccd2d2887954ff23eceb7b0a380740ce.jpg'></p><p>
<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/memefactory">Meme Factory</a> shows ought to reach the kind of viral fame that defines the memes they chronicle.</p>
<p>
The trio of three bearded Brooklynites capped off the first day of ROFLcon Friday with a modern art performance that combined a breadth of Internet knowledge with seriously funny, ironic wit and a potent ability to weave disparate Internet culture together into a single story. Sitting in the dark, lit only by the screens of their three Macbooks, the trio wove a carefully choreographed, complex (and at times confusingly self-referential) narrative illustrated by three interwoven Powerpoint presentations displayed on three projectors.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
It is weird, funny, and awesome.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Are the only funny things today things that perfect old funny things?&rdquo; they asked Friday. Stephen Bruckert, Patrick Davison, and Mike Rugnetta explored the history and future of Internet humor, from the hamster dance to Scumbag Steve to Nyan Cat. They claimed the entire Internet is in the throes of a kind of&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September">eternal September</a>&mdash;the notion, coined on Usenet networks in the early 1990s, that Internet communities inherently decline as they grow bigger, thanks to a flood of new users unfamiliar with their customs and culture.</p>
<p>
Gone are the days of endearingly bad and absurd humor arising almost accidentally from small corners of the Internet (like, say,&nbsp;<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hampster-dance">hamster dance</a> and&nbsp;<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/peanut-butter-jelly-time">peanut butter jelly time</a>). They&rsquo;ve been replaced with either slick, high-quality videos meant to be funny, or armies of image memes, whose hackneyed jokes and one-dimensional characters are, the trio said, akin to a bad Internet sitcom (<em>Big Bang Theory</em>, to be specific).</p>
<p>
Meme Factory is so good, we want more. Unfortunately,<a href="http://vimeo.com/channels/wwksf"> the archives</a> of their past performances aren&rsquo;t nearly enough to satisfy, and the video from last night&rsquo;s show likely won&#39;t go up for another week.</p>
<p>
Meme Factory&rsquo;s performances&mdash;in a likely intentional twist of irony&mdash;are difficult to translate to an easily sharable online form.</p>
<p>
Maybe that&rsquo;s why <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rugnetta/memefactory-writes-a-book">they&rsquo;re writing a book</a>.</p>
<p>
<em>Photo by MemeFactory</em></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
kevin@dailydot.com (Kevin Morris)Sat, 05 May 2012 18:23:01 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/culture/meme-factory-roflcon/CultureNyan Cat meets Me Gustahttp://www.dailydot.com/society/nyan-cat-ryan-torres-me-gusta-matt-oswald/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/c1/d3/c1d3aad0c1be641e2c6ed6f85e47b7cb.jpg'></p><p>
Garfield. Pink Panther. Nyan Cat.</p>
<p>
They are three of the most recognizable cat illustrations in the world. Yet most people wouldn&rsquo;t be able to recognize their creators walking in the street.</p>
<p>
That wasn&rsquo;t the case, however, for Nyan Cat creator Chris Torres at ROFLcon on Friday, where he spoke about his illustration, its impact on his life, and what he thinks of the Internet&rsquo;s reaction to it.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Nobody really knows the person behind specific memes,&rdquo; Torres told an auditorium filled with people wearing his illustration.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all over the place. I love it. People love my work and feel like they can express themselves with their own versions.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Since creating the illustration <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/happy-birthday-nyan-cat-meow-chris-torres/">more than a year ago</a> and subsequently having it set to the high-pitched song &ldquo;Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!&rdquo; playing on repeat, hundreds of people have made the cat their own.</p>
<p>
Last last month, Canvas user Joe Palfreyman (photocopier) <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/canvas-photocopier-nyan-cat-remix-gif/">re-imagined the Nyan Cat&rsquo;s</a> origin with a stellar GIF that collected more than 1,500 stickers. That was shortly followed by a remix featuring <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/video/scumbag-steve-blake-boston-roflcon-interview/">Tom Waits</a>.</p>
<p>
Yet despite his new found Internet fame, Torres said his life is pretty much the same.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There hasn&rsquo;t been anything extraordinary,&rdquo; Torres said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just so mind blowing that the mainstream media is interested in me and what I do.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The same feeling was shared by fellow panelist <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/me-gusta-matt-oswald-roflcon-interview/">Matt Oswald</a>, the creator of &ldquo;Me Gusta,&rdquo; a rage comic face that originated on 4chan. Like the Nyan Cat, &ldquo;Me Gusta&rdquo; has been turned into <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/rage_comic_meme_faces_walking_me_gusta_tshirt-235608566273704042">T-shirts</a>, hilarious YouTube <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/rage-comics-in-real-life-youtube/">videos</a>, and an educational <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/rage-comics-teach-english/">tool</a>. And Oswald wouldn&rsquo;t have it any other way.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The main reason why it&rsquo;s OK is because I&rsquo;m not the main reason why it exists,&rdquo; Oswald said. &ldquo;The Internet is the reason why it&rsquo;s famous in the first place so they can have it.&rdquo; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N5ESMV_zBBo?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
<em>Photo by Fernando Alfonso III</em></p>
fernando@dailydot.com (Fernando Alfonso III)Fri, 04 May 2012 23:02:28 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/nyan-cat-ryan-torres-me-gusta-matt-oswald/SocietyScumbag Steve speaks: "Everybody does pull scumbag moves"http://www.dailydot.com/video/scumbag-steve-blake-boston-roflcon-interview/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/16/1b/161b631260d97180041ab020c479e84e.jpg'></p><p>
Blake Boston never asked for Internet fame. But now that he&rsquo;s been unflatteringly pegged as viral image macro Scumbag Steve, he&rsquo;s rolling with the punches.</p>
<p>
At ROFLcon, the Daily Dot caught up with Boston about his new video series&mdash;<a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/scumbag-steve-thursday-overture-rap/">Scumbag Thursdays</a>&mdash;and even got a sneak peek of next Thursday&rsquo;s release.</p>
<p>
Learn about how Boston deals with haters and copes with baby-mama drama.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="365" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/k3eWJBGWex0?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
lauren.rae.orsini@gmail.com (Lauren Rae Orsini)Fri, 04 May 2012 22:46:13 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/video/scumbag-steve-blake-boston-roflcon-interview/VideoThe Daily Dot’s guide to ROFLconhttp://www.dailydot.com/news/daily-dot-guide-roflcon/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/68/60/6860afe440abfa308889a4270d3c5230.jpg'></p><p>
To quote ROFLcon founder Tim Hwang, &ldquo;Set your phasers for awesome.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The third annual Web culture convention is currently underway at&nbsp;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where two days&rsquo; worth of panels will address everything from <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/comics/">webcomics</a> and <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/comics/">supercuts</a> to <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/fangirl-flourish-klink-porn-rule-34-interview/">fangirls</a> and <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/congress-tmi-cispa-spam-action/">defending the Internet</a>. (Here&#39;s our <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/jonathan-zittrain-roflcon-keynote-address/">recap</a> of&nbsp;<a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jzittrain">Jonathan Zittrain&rsquo;s</a>&nbsp;opening keynote speech.)</p>
<p>
If there&rsquo;s an underlying theme to ROFLcon this year, it&rsquo;s the unwavering attempt to understand the importance of Internet memes&mdash;those cultural ties that bind the Web. You will see that in Jordan Lefler&rsquo;s linguistic analysis of LOLspeak, the real-life personification of <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/scumbag-steve-thursday-overture-rap/">Scumbag Steve</a>, a discussion with Cheezburger Network&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/ben-huh-cheezburger-sxsw-interview/">Bun Huh</a>, and a look at the distinct impact of memes <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/global-lulzes-brazil-memepedia-bia-granja/">around the world</a>. &nbsp;</p>
<p>
In other words, we&rsquo;re about to find out what happens when the Web&mdash;and those behind the memes&mdash;gets real.</p>
<p>
Here&rsquo;s a curated guide to some of the Daily Dot&rsquo;s most anticipated panels.</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/global-lulzes-brazil-memepedia-bia-granja/">&ldquo;Mamilos!&rdquo; Translating Brazil&#39;s entertaining and bizarre memes</a></strong></big><br />
Every language communicates with its memes. Brazil&#39;s memes, Bia Granja says, &quot;are a product of social difference.&quot; (Global Lulzes: Friday, 2 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/me-gusta-matt-oswald-roflcon-interview/">No Me Gusta: Illustrator Matt Oswald apologizes to the Internet </a></strong></big><br />
Oswald recounts the origin story and personal implications of his infamous rage comic, Me Gusta. (From Micro-Fame to Nano-Fame: Friday, 3:15 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/interviews/weeble-jonti-picking-roflcon-interview/">Weebl on Weebl: Web star Jonti Picking reflects on his Internet empire</a></strong></big><br />
Ten years after the debut of his still-awesome Web series, Weebl reflects on how the Internet and his work have changed together. (The Distant Future, the Year 2000: Friday, 5 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/business/boing-boing-rob-beschizza/">Boing Boing&#39;s Rob Beschizza: &quot;We&#39;re not big on cat videos anymore&quot;</a></strong></big><br />
Boing Boing&rsquo;s managing editor discusses the early Web and secrets to success. (The Distant Future, the Year 2000: Friday, 5 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/business/behind-youtube-kevin-allocca-interview/">Behind the scenes of YouTube with Kevin Allocca</a></strong></big><br />
YouTube&#39;s trends manager pulls back the curtain and talks about viral videos. (Too Big to Know: Friday, 6:30 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/brian-manowitz-vegan-black-metal-chef-interview/">In the kitchen with Vegan Black Metal Chef</a></strong></big><br />
Brian Manowitz dishes on black metal, pad thai, and his forthcoming album. (Drunk Vegan Black Metal Scanwich Chef: Saturday, 11 am, Track B)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/fangirl-flourish-klink-porn-rule-34-interview/">How fangirls uphold the Internet&rsquo;s Rule 34</a></strong></big><br />
Porn exists for anything you can think of. And you can thank fangirls for that. (<a href="http://roflcon.org/2012/04/23/the-titans-of-fangirl-culture-at-roflcon-iii/">The Titans of Fangirl Culture: </a>Saturday, 11 am, Track C)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/le-meme-jonathan-vingiano-interview/">Le Meme creator on le GIF</a></strong></big><br />
GIF artist and curator Jonathan Vingiano explains the recent resurgence of GIFs on the Web. (The GIFs that Keep on GIFing: Saturday, 1:30 pm, Track B)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/gif-history-steve-wilhite-olia-lialina-interview/">The animated history of the GIF</a></strong></big><br />
CompuServe&#39;s Alexander Trevor and inventor Steve Wilhite, and Russian artist Olia Lialina trace the rise and evolution of the GIF. (The GIFs that Keep on GIFing: Saturday, 1:30 pm, Track B)</p>
<p>
<big><strong><a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/matt-harding-youtube-channels-interview/">Matt Harding: YouTube channels killed the Internet video star</a></strong></big><br />
Where The Hell Is Matt, and why doesn&#39;t YouTube seem to care? (Channels Killed the Internet (Video) Star: Saturday, 1:30 pm, Track A)</p>
<p>
<em>Photo via <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/laureninspace/">@laureninspace</a>/Twitter</em></p>
austin@dailydot.com (Austin Powell)Fri, 04 May 2012 19:02:12 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/news/daily-dot-guide-roflcon/NewsJonathan Zittrain on memes and the fight against institutionalized cynicism http://www.dailydot.com/news/jonathan-zittrain-roflcon-keynote-address/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/e6/30/e6309d890f660886672dc424196eb2fa.jpg'></p><p>
Can Internet memes and culture fight institutionalized cynicism?</p>
<p>
That was the ultimate question of <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jzittrain">Jonathan Zittrain&rsquo;s</a> keynote speech to open the 2012 <a href="http://roflcon.org/">ROFLcon</a>&nbsp;at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology&mdash;punctuated with an army of image memes, inside jokes, and laughs.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something going on here,&rdquo; Zittrain said at the conclusion to his speech, after an hour probing into the intersection of memes, Internet culture, ethics, and law, &ldquo;that suggests that &hellip; there are other avenues for expression that have been made fluid, ready to pursue by the phenomena of the Internet meme.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
In other words: The meme is opening up new pathway for expression, powered by the Internet&#39;s irreverent sense of humor.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
You&rsquo;d be hard-pressed to find a better keynote speaker for ROFLcon. A Harvard professor (at both the law school and the Kennedy School of Government), Zittrain&rsquo;s got a mixture of pure geek background (he&rsquo;s a former forum admin for CompuServe), great sense of humor, and intellectual heft that was a perfect fit for the audience.</p>
<p>
Though Zittrain said he didn&rsquo;t quite consider himself an Internet &ldquo;ROFLcon person,&rdquo; the audience&rsquo;s warm reaction showed they very much disagree. His speech had less the atmosphere of a stilted academic hall than a rowdy comedy club for Internet geeks.</p>
<p>
For ROFLcon attendees, Zittrain may best be known as the cofounder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which studies cyberspace and, particularly, the intersection of law and the Internet. His 2008 book, <em><a href="http://futureoftheinternet.org/">The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It</a></em>, portrayed a dark trajectory for the open Web, moving from a world where the generative, user-powered creative engine that powered the Internet&rsquo;s growth is threatened by the proliferation of walled gardens of development&mdash;iPhones, xBoxes, and other devices that can be locked down by their manufacturers.</p>
<p>
Zittrain&rsquo;s parade of memes could be seen as the cultural equivalent of this. Memes are a part of generative culture, which sometimes poke and prod at the boundaries of institutions.</p>
<p>
Among Zittrain&rsquo;s many examples was a photo of the U.S. Senate, with this political statement in meme form: &ldquo;This is why we can&rsquo;t have nice things.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Sometimes the culture moves into significant action&mdash;most prominently, as Zittrain noted, in the case of Anonymous and WikiLeaks. Citing the protests against the <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/what-is-sopa-what-is-pipa-dns-regulation/">Stop Online Piracy Act</a>, Zittrain noted there&rsquo;s &ldquo;an extra dimension to its power&rdquo; when political commentary combines with a group&rsquo;s common understanding of memes.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The most countercultural way to deploy this force is against the un-funny cynicism of our mainstream institutions,&rdquo; Zittrain concluded.</p>
<p>
<em>Check out a <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/roflcon-keynote-jonathan-zittrain-on-memes-and-society">full liveblog</a> of the keynote at The MIT Center for Civic Media&#39;s blog.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>
<em>Photo by Daily Dot</em></p>
kevin@dailydot.com (Kevin Morris)Fri, 04 May 2012 18:53:15 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/news/jonathan-zittrain-roflcon-keynote-address/NewsBoing Boing's Rob Beschizza: "We're not big on cat videos anymore"http://www.dailydot.com/business/boing-boing-rob-beschizza/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/21/8c/218cbd310ce781c9206a0ec8828aaded.jpg'></p><p>
Have you noticed that bacon is a bit overexposed lately? Blame Boing Boing.</p>
<p>
The popular blog started it all back in &lsquo;<a href="http://boingboing.net/2005/06/25/alarm-clock-with-bac.html">05</a> and &lsquo;<a href="http://boingboing.net/2006/08/22/bacon-wallet.html">06</a>. It just took the rest of the world a few years to catch on.</p>
<p>
Really, that&rsquo;s the story of Boing Boing&rsquo;s life: finding the esoteric and making it trendy among geeks until it becomes, through some strange sociological alchemy, mainstream. It could plausibly be said to have invented hipster culture, with its focus on <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/29/felt-game-boy-with-v.html">wistful handicrafts</a>, the self-referentially <a href="http://boingboing.net/uke/2002_10_01_ukearchive.html">retro</a>, and the proudly <a href="http://boingboing.net/2003/03/07/web-zen-crafty-geeky.html">geeky</a>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Its Web Zen posts could even be said to have popularized that now-classic Internet format: the linkdump. Not only is it one of the most popular, influential sites on the Internet, it&rsquo;s also one of the oldest, having started as an actual, physical &lsquo;zine back in 1998.</p>
<p>
Boing Boing made the transition to the Web early, at the turn of the century, and two years later moved to a blog format. Two Webby awards and a permanent place in the Technorati Top Ten later, the rest is history, with an estimated 5 million unique visitors a month.</p>
<p>
The Daily Dot spoke to the Boing Boing collective&rsquo;s Managing Editor and proudly geeky ginger <a href="http://beschizza.com/">Rob Beschizza</a> ahead of his ROFLcon appearance.</p>
<p>
<em><strong>Daily Dot:</strong> Boing Boing has been going since Duran Duran was the hot new band. Why did Boing Boing succeed at that transition which, at the time, was killing so many other people?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;You&#39;d have to ask [Boing Boing founder] Mark Frauenfelder for the details, but it&#39;s more or less because it was a decision made voluntarily and with enthusiasm. What killed so many other people was the fact that they went online reluctantly and with a bottomless sense of resentment about the whole thing.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD:</strong> Was it that they had a strong vision of how to monetize or that they had a trust fund or deep-pocketed investors?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;Nah, they just registered a web domain and got cracking. It didn&#39;t require any money to run at all.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>Why do you think your popularity has been evergreen? Do you have a brand so strong people self-identify as the kind of people who read Boing Boing rather than the kind of people who read, say, the Huffington Post?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;I think it&#39;s because it&#39;s basically a small idea, a simple idea, that only appeals to a certain sort of person&mdash;the whole idea of happy mutants, hacking beyond computers, making stuff, whatever&mdash;rather than trying to be all things to all people. Some modern news sites are all about relentless growth and promiscuous appeal to as many people as possible. There&#39;s no voice&mdash;just an undifferentiated mountain of information. Boing Boing is much smaller and personal than this. It&#39;s a half-dozen writers writing about what interests us and our readers.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>What is the strategy for Web longevity? You hardly post any cat videos.</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;We&#39;re not big on cat videos anymore, but it happens. It&#39;s just old. We don&#39;t really have any strategy for anything like that. Our audience seems to grow slowly, which is likely younger people finding BB as time goes by. Older folks already like us or hate us; they will have long ago made up their mind.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>How did your site grow from an edgy cultural outlier, nestled up against Mondo2000, to the destination site that it is now? It&#39;s really one of the central sites of the Internet in terms of culture; did BoingBoing move towards the culture or did the culture itself move towards Boing Boing?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;We move toward the culture, then we share what we like about it with others. So while it&#39;s mutual, we&#39;re really just knocking about the landscape the same as everyone else. It&#39;s easy to overestimate the influence that any one website has. There are just moments where everyone is paying attention, and those moments become part of the history, the culture, even if they don&#39;t really mean much.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>What is the definitive Boing Boing article? What is the definitive Boing Boing voice? </em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;There&#39;s no definitive BB article! There&#39;s no definitive BB voice, either: just our individual voices blathering on at the site.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>The average internet user now is far different from the average when you started. What differences do you see? Have you changed with the times as well, and if so how?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;The average Internet user is much less nerdy now than it was 15 years ago. Boing Boing&#39;s changed with the times&mdash;it&#39;s grown into a business, for starters&mdash;but the editors changed a lot personally, too, which accounts for the editorial changes over the years. We publish a lot more original features than we did 5 years ago, but even that is a hearkening-back to the zine days!&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>For an ensemble site, you have a strong and consistent style. How do you keep the core group working together for so long?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;Because it&#39;s fun. We all love doing it. That&#39;s more or less all there is to say about the collaborative aspect of it.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong>DD: </strong>With so many hundreds of millions of websites out there, attention is getting fragmented. How does this influence you and your readers?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;The pond we&#39;re in became an ocean. It&#39;s the most wonderful thing about it.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>
ROFLcon: The Distant Future, the Year 2000</li>
<li>
Friday, 5 pm, Track A</li>
</ul>
<p>
<em>Photo via Wikipedia</em></p>
raincoaster@dailydot.com (Lorraine Murphy)Fri, 04 May 2012 14:00:00 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/business/boing-boing-rob-beschizza/BusinessNewsBlogs“Mamilos!” Translating Brazil's entertaining and bizarre memeshttp://www.dailydot.com/society/global-lulzes-brazil-memepedia-bia-granja/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/90/e8/90e8b0f60bbefda6d736b536fa6abd19.jpg'></p><p>
Bia Granja is talking to me on Skype about nipples and Brazilian Internet culture.</p>
<p>
As the organizer for <a href="http://youpix.com.br/">YouPix</a>, an Internet culture festival, Granja spends her life chronicling the entertaining idiosyncrasies of Brazil&rsquo;s Web culture. &ldquo;Nipples,&rdquo; she tells me, were the subject of one of Brazil&rsquo;s biggest viral videos.</p>
<p>
In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=_O8jdvxh3jA">the clip</a>, a 16-year-old boy sits shirtless on what looks like his living room couch, his head enveloped between headphones at least two sizes too big. He wants to have a serious conversation, he tells the audience, about a controversial topic. Seconds later, he shoves his nipples into the camera.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Mamilos!&rdquo; he giggles, saying the Portuguese word for nipples.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Mamilos,&rdquo; he repeats. &ldquo;Mamilos are very controversial.&rdquo;</p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_O8jdvxh3jA?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
The video broke out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ic_Vv3Wz2I">into the mainstream</a> and changed the language. Mamilos is now a synonym for controversy, an inside joke among Brazil&rsquo;s Internet-savvy youth.</p>
<p>
But what&rsquo;s so special about this video? It&rsquo;s funny, but to most outsiders it probably won&rsquo;t scream intentional or (even unintentional) comedic genius. How did the video ever reach such runaway popularity?</p>
<p>
Granja grew up in the Portuguese-speaking streets of Sao Paulo, but she speaks English almost effortlessly. In fact, at moments where her accent dips or hangs on certain vowels, she makes the language sound altogether better. She can talk tackle complex subjects, like the paradigm shift in Brazilian Internet culture over the last two years that&rsquo;s happened thanks to the proliferation of social media. Translating individual words and sentences, it goes without saying, is easy for her.</p>
<p>
But Granja can&rsquo;t make you understand a meme.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Even if I translate it to you,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;it won&rsquo;t make sense to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s not her fault. Granja will be the first to tell you that memes, like humor, are a cultural language.</p>
<p>
Granja is part of a four-person panel speaking at ROFLCon, the Internet culture conference, in Boston on Friday. Dubbed &ldquo;Global Lulzes,&rdquo; the panel will explore international manifestations of Internet culture&mdash;or, as ROFLCon says, the &ldquo;wide world of internets beyond our anglophone border.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The moderator for the discussion is Ethan Zuckerman, the director of MIT&rsquo;s Center for Civic Media. Zuckerman is an obvious choice to lead the panel: At <a href="http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/05/03/roflcon-from-weird-to-wide/">his keynote address</a> to the 2010 &nbsp;ROFLCon, he predicted &rdquo;the next wave of Internet memes is going to come from the developing world.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Creativity, Zuckerman argued, has an almost universal distribution. The only thing standing between the billions of people in the world&rsquo;s developing countries and meme invention, proliferation, and popularization is Internet access.</p>
<p>
One country Zuckerman picked for a meme revolution (among China, Russia, and India) was Brazil, where the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/expats-lured-by-brazils-booming-economy/2012/01/13/gIQA4jnasQ_story.html">economy has been booming</a>, and whose citizens are finally logging online en masse, thanks <a href="http://thenextweb.com/la/2011/08/22/smartphone-usage-in-brazil-why-youll-be-surprised/">largely to the proliferation of cell phones</a>.</p>
<p>
As the nipple kid shows and Granja can attest, Brazil has proved Zuckerman&rsquo;s prediction right. The fifth-most populous country in the world now boasts the second largest population on <a href="http://www.checkfacebook.com/">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://memeburn.com/2012/01/us-still-top-twitter-country-brazil-climbs-to-second-study/">Twitter</a>. Over the past two years that&rsquo;s helped the country tap into its rich vein of creativity, resulting in an explosion of Web culture.</p>
<p>
At ROFLcon, Granja will explain that culture (&ldquo;There&rsquo;s life out there,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I hope to take you on a safari.&rdquo;)</p>
<p>
Her organization, YouPix, started out as a digital culture magazine and has since transformed into a festival that meets at least two times a year. It&rsquo;s pretty much the Brazilian ROFLCon. On its website, YouPix hosts what&rsquo;s a basically a Brazilian version of Know Your Meme, called <a href="http://youpix.com.br/memepedia">Memepedia</a>. It&rsquo;s also <a href="http://youpix.com.br/memepedia/understand-brazilian-memes/">translated</a> some of the most famous Brazilian memes into English. At least one, tenso, &ldquo;the original Brazilian meme,&rdquo; has reached international recognition. Even the quite anglophone-centric Know Your Meme <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tenso">wrote about it</a>.</p>
<p>
Many of the memes arise because the Web has torn down demographic and economic boundaries, Granja attests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;We have a lot of people in Brazil that doesn&rsquo;t have all the basic needs, like water, school ... all that simple stuff. But they&rsquo;re on the Internet.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Many memes, she reasons, are jokes based on common misspellings, because so many poor and often illiterate people are suddenly plugging in to the Internet. They are, she says, the &ldquo;kind of stuff you see when illiterate people come to the Internet.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;These memes are a product of social difference.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Brazil&rsquo;s rich Internet culture stands largely independent from the rage comics, Nyan cats, and All Your Bases of the English-speaking world. (Brazil, for instance, has its own Rule 34, thank you very much.) The boundaries of digital culture, in some ways, mimic those of the physical world: Memetic drift is limited by linguistic and cultural borders.</p>
<p>
That&rsquo;s creating rich islands of global digital memedom, which many of us will likely never see, much less comprehend.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The Internet is there,&rdquo; Granja says. &ldquo;Reachable&mdash;and not really understandable.&quot;</p>
<ul>
<li>
ROFLcon: Global Lulzes</li>
<li>
Friday, 2 pm, Track A</li>
</ul>
kevin@dailydot.com (Kevin Morris)Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/society/global-lulzes-brazil-memepedia-bia-granja/SocietyIn the kitchen with Vegan Black Metal Chefhttp://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/brian-manowitz-vegan-black-metal-chef-interview/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/8e/1d/8e1d0458c28a3bde55b0a967e599d1be.jpg'></p><p>
Brian Manowitz is a man made for the niche crowds.</p>
<p>
Better known on YouTube as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/VeganBlackMetalChef/videos">Vegan Black Metal Chef</a>, Manowitz is a somewhat self-explanatory personality whose breadwinning talent is that he writes informative, often hilarious&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3swY3r81c&amp;feature=plcp">black metal songs</a> about cooking vegan food. Over dark, distorted guitar riffs and double-bass drums, Manowitz explains all the proper procedures one should take to make a delicious plate of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxdj-fQBFDc&amp;feature=plcp">black beans</a> or&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ei3O7y2eg&amp;feature=relmfu">tempura asparagus sushi</a>.</p>
<p>
&quot;My cooking habits are not exactly conventional,&quot; Manowitz explained to the Daily Dot.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&quot;Usually when you try out a lot of vegetarian things, people complain that they&#39;re not very tasty. In terms of a lot of more traditional vegan recipes that I&#39;ve tried, when you follow them to a T, they always seem to come out terrible. I wanted to make it possible for people to follow recipes that don&#39;t come out so terrible.&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Manowitz hones in on those not-so-terrible recipes from the kitchen in his Orlando, Fla., home, one decorated with leather-bound cabinets, medieval meat cleavers, and ominous candles. He cooks regularly, essentially eschews eating out, and treats every meal like a tryout for another video lesson.</p>
<p>
&quot;I&#39;ll make a whole lot of bad food to try to arrive at something really good,&quot; he said. &quot;When things become good, they become part of my normal regiment of things to eat. And as long as they&#39;re at the pinnacle of food existence in my eyes, they&#39;re deserving of an episode.&quot;</p>
<p>
Launched last May, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/VeganBlackMetalChef/videos">Vegan Black Metal Chef</a>&#39;s first video&mdash;a lesson on how to make <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZlih4DDNg&amp;feature=plcp">vegan pad thai</a>&mdash;tallied nearly 2 million views and earned the attention such major media outlets as <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/vegan-black-metal-chef-makes-delicious-dishes-hellfire/story?id=14765349">ABC News</a> and <a href="http://stereogum.com/705501/vegan-black-metal-chef/video/">Stereogum</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">
<iframe class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="527" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CeZlih4DDNg?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
A month later, Vegan Black Metal Chef&#39;s second video&mdash;which taught viewers how to make Manowitz&#39;s signature <a href="http://youtu.be/Jy2my_diH6A">All Star Redneck Medley</a>, a combination of mashed potatoes, baked beans, and corn&mdash;picked up only 365,000 views. To date, it&#39;s the second most-watched video in his nine-episode series; no other installment has more than 152,000 views.</p>
<p>
On the surface, black metal and vegan dining might seem as jarring together as Manowitz&rsquo;s black-and-white face paint and spiked garb. But, as bands like Wolves in the Throne Room have helped illustrate, the genre can be quite progressive in both sound and inspiration, addressing environmental, spiritual, and, in the case of Manowitz, culinary concerns.</p>
<p>
He&rsquo;s clearly isn&rsquo;t in it for the novelty factor.</p>
<p>
&quot;At the beginning, there was a giant &#39;What the fuck?&#39; factor,&quot; Manowitz conceded. &quot;After that, once it was just accepted that there was a vegan black metal chef who ran a legitimate cooking instruction show, that sort of weeded out the people who weren&#39;t too interested in the two cultures. That process occurred naturally, and I see a core base growing while everybody else in the world has sort of slowed down.&quot;</p>
<p>
Attention&#39;s slowed down, but it&#39;s also somewhat plateaued&mdash;good news for someone who knew that he&#39;d be better off appealing to a niche crowd than going for a hit with every episode. His last three videos have all received a similar number of views, finishing their rush between 22,000 and 33,000.</p>
<p>
Getting a grip on who Manowitz&#39;s reliable viewers are will play a major part in how he sets Vegan Death Metal Chef up for the channel&#39;s second year. A member of YouTube&rsquo;s Partners program, Manowitz explained that running the channel is his foremost focus. (He also plays in a few bands around Orlando that keep some of his attention.) He said that he was approached by MTV for a TV show shortly after the pad thai episode hit screens, but that the network passed after &nbsp;it deemed the concept too inaccessible.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;My main focus hasn&#39;t been to jump on a TV network,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I just want to get better with each episode and refine what&#39;s there, write better songs and improve the video aspect.</p>
<p>
&quot;I&#39;m going to be releasing a DVD and an album with all of year one&#39;s backing tracks. A lot of people have been requesting that.&quot;</p>
<ul>
<li>
ROFLcon: Drunk Vegan Black Metal Scanwich Chef</li>
<li>
Saturday, 11 am, Track B</li>
</ul>
<p>
<em>Photo via </em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy2my_diH6A&amp;feature=plcp"><em>YouTube</em></a></p>
chase@dailydot.com (Chase Hoffberger)Tue, 01 May 2012 12:54:16 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/brian-manowitz-vegan-black-metal-chef-interview/SocietyYouTubeEntertainmentNo Me Gusta: Illustrator Matt Oswald apologizes to the Internet http://www.dailydot.com/culture/me-gusta-matt-oswald-roflcon-interview/<p><img src='//cdn0.dailydot.com/cache/26/a5/26a5ea8f3944b74d3e7b30cf6d73c909.jpg'></p><p>
Just over two years ago, Matt Oswald unleashed an atrocity on the Internet.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="//cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/4/26/Me_Gusta_Face.png" style="margin-left: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-top: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; float: right; width: 200px; height: 207px; " /></p>
<p>
Entitled Me Gusta, the crude image was simply drawn&mdash;a single, full-moon-like face with a devious look of joy and the eponymous caption&mdash;but quickly became one of the most popular rage comics on the Web.</p>
<p>
Oswald drew and uploaded Me Gusta to the message board 4Chan on March 18, 2010 at the behest of a friend&mdash;all in a 15-minute span.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Then I received a text from my buddy two months later,&rdquo; Oswald told the Daily Dot over Skype. &ldquo;He told me, &lsquo;Hey you&rsquo;re drawing is everywhere on Reddit.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s the origin story.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Shortly after, Oswald drew up the first the comic containing Me Gusta and posted it on 4Chan.</p>
<p>
The Me Gusta drawing is generally used for rage comics, user-generated short stories using faces that express a variety of basic and often primal emotions. Me Gusta, along with drawings such as <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trollface-coolface-problem">Trollface</a>, has become a staple of the genre.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">
<img alt="" src="//cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/4/26/Me_Gusta_Comic.jpg" style="width: 630px; height: 426px; " /></p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
While nobody recognizes Oswald on the streets for his creation, he received a steady following on his <a href="http://mattoswald.com/">Tumblr blog</a> after admitting to be Me Gusta&rsquo;s creator.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;A while ago I drew an ugly face known as Me Gusta,&rdquo; the post read. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s now kind of famous on Reddit and 4chan. I&rsquo;m so sorry, Internet.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Oswald has never tried to commercially exploit the meme, stating that it now belongs to the Internet.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;My mother is learning the whole Web thing, and she has asked me &lsquo;Why aren&rsquo;t you monetizing this?&rsquo;&rdquo; Oswald said, laughing.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
&ldquo;Memes are kind of like the Internet&rsquo;s community inside joke. You can&rsquo;t bank on a friend.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Even if Oswald has not commercialized Me Gusta, he has still benefited from the drawing&rsquo;s infamy indirectly. He has been able to land consistent freelancing gigs as an illustrator, many of which are featured on his Tumblr blog.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;If it wasn&rsquo;t for that little crappy image I made I wouldn&rsquo;t have a job doing what I love.&rdquo;</p>
<ul>
<li>
ROFLcon: From Micro-Fame to Nano-Fame</li>
<li>
Friday, 3:15 pm, Track A</li>
</ul>
<p>
<em>Photo by Matt Oswald/<a href="http://mattoswald.com/">Tumblr</a></em></p>
christian@dailydot.com (Christian Yoder)Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:00:00 +0000http://www.dailydot.com/culture/me-gusta-matt-oswald-roflcon-interview/Culture4chan